White Coat Ceremony

This last Saturday was James's White Coat Ceremony.  If you're anything like me, you've never heard of this before and/or don't get what it is.  Good news!  I now know and will explain it to you.  Towards the beginning of their medical school career, med students have a ceremony called the White Coat Ceremony that celebrates this transition into med school.  It's kind of like a pre-graduation.  At this ceremony, they take the osteopathic pledge (a pledge to treat patients well, to follow the tenants of their schooling, etc.) and they receive their white coats.  This is the coat James will wear in all patient encounters until he completes med school.  This includes rotations, volunteer hours, and his simulated patient interactions.  Here's James with his fancy new coat:

He's really a med student now! Medical schools do this ceremony at different times (first week of school, a few months in, etc.), but for us it was after 8 weeks of school.  Presumably anyone who decided they actually didn't want to do this would have dropped out by now.  The ceremony was nice, with some good speakers.  The "coating" (I love that...it sounds like he's being marinated) took longer.  He feels and looks legit now, and I'm so proud.

The Cashier Chronicles

I recently got a job here as a cashier at a local grocery store.  As the newest cashier, I've been shadowed by some coworkers to make sure I don't mess anything up too badly.  How busy the store is depends on the time of the month, as most of our customers are on Food Stamps and WIC, which are issued at the beginning of the month.  The end of the month is pretty slow.  It's interesting to see how different people will spend this money versus how they'd spend their own money.

I've also learned some new stuff about produce.  I've never actually seen okra before this week, except when Tiana made gumbo in The Princess and the Frog. Who knew?  Fascinating item.  Another produce item with a twist: cucumbers.  Our store carries two sizes: normal and small.  When I got the small ones, I spent forever trying to find it on our produce sheet so I could enter the code into the system.  It turns out their official name is not "small cucumbers" or "mini cucumbers" or "midget cucumbers."  Nope- their official name is "picklin' cukes." Picklin' cukes!  I love it.  It's a good thing I was being shadowed that day or I'd never have found them.

In addition to okra and picklin' cukes, we sell bags of ice.  We do not sell blocks of ice, however.  I was trying to make this distinction with my trainer ("Well, what do I type in if they want a block of ice instead of ice cubes?"  "Who would want a 10 lb block of ice, Sariah? What would you even do with that?") and explained what ice blocking was.  She responded, "That sounds amazing.  Why haven't we done that?  I reckon it'd be great on our hills...hmm.  Do you need grease for it?"  (She puts oil on the bottom of her inner tube to go sledding in winter.  I've never heard of this.)  In return for my explanation of this fun new pastime, she told me about a Southern alternative: muddin'.  Muddin' is where you go out driving (preferably in a mud-friendly vehicle) through mud puddles.  How muddy you yourself get depends on if you're in a truck instead of ATV and if the windows are open.  I feel like ice blocking might be a cleaner option, but still, if we get bored, we'll know what to do!

Heavy Driving

Since moving here, I think that on average we're in the car at least 45 minutes a day. Just to put that in perspective, I bought gas yesterday and have already driven 100 miles. Crazy. I know. Basically everywhere we want or need to go ends up being about 20 minutes away. I think that I'm starting to get used to it, but that's just me talking. At any rate, there is flea market that is, you guessed it, about 20 minutes away. Sariah and I went once a couple weeks ago just to see what it was like. The only thing that I've experienced that was remotely similar was a thing in Argentina called a feria. People have booths that sell a wide variety of things from bootlegged DVDs and CDs to food to animals to old tools. These things are a Southern tradition as the sign proudly proclaims. As a brief side note here before the point of this post starts, the first time we went, Sariah and I were amazed at how many things are sold there illegally. She looked at me and whispered, afraid of offending the wrong booth-keeper, "This is illegal, isn't it?" To those who aren't sure, it is. It's grossly illegal. Maybe I'm wrong; this is the South after all. Things are a little different from what we're used to.

Anyway, we decided to make the 20 minute trek to the flea market for a rug. We found a lovely, Moroccan tile rug that was just the right size for our living room. We even haggled with the guy manning the table and got 5 whole dollars knocked off the price. Life was looking pretty sweet at this point. We gently tossed the rug into the back of our truck and got ready to go home and let our feet bask in the soft fibers of our newly purchased rug. Due to the popularity of the flea market, we were forced to park on the shoulder of the highway. Now if you've ever tried to turn left on a highway, you know that it can take a while to do so. I quickly remembered that we were close to a local BBQ that is supposed to be the bee's knees and it just so happened to be to the right of where we were pulling out. Being the impatient driver that I am, I suggested that we turn right and go on a little excursion to find Heavy's.

I honestly thought that this would be a quick drive and that we'd be back home 5 minutes later than had we just gone home after the flea market. We both thought that. It seemed like a good decision at the time. I'm still glad that we did it because it was kind of fun trying to find this place. Anyhow, we turned right and then turned right again where the sign for the Heavy's was. Things started off well enough; we passed some homes and a few churches without any sign of the place. We thought, "It must be a mile down this road. Surely they wouldn't make their restaurant hard to find." Wrong! We kept on going another mile,which turned into five, which became 20. The road we were on became pretty narrow with barely enough space for two cars to pass each other. However, it was a pretty road. We saw plenty of the soft green water of the Powell River through the dense trees. We even saw some small strips of tobacco plants here and there.

Eventually, the road ended without any sign for Heavy's. We had a choice to make: left or right? I chose right. For whatever reason, Sariah trusts me when it comes to driving. I hope that I didn't destroy that. We drove on and on and on and on. I kept thinking that we would make it back to the main highway any second. Suddenly we saw a sign that said a familiar-sounding highway was coming up on our left. I breathed a sigh of relief and made a turn there. After driving for roughly 15 minutes, we had passed into another county and I knew that something was wrong. Our tank of gas was starting to run low too so my anxiety started to rise. We turned around and drove back the way we came until we ran into a relatively nice couple that were doing yard work together. I got out of the car and asked them how to get back home. Apparently we had gone the right direction, but we shouldn't have turned down that highway that sounded familiar to us (I could have told them that); we should have kept going straight. We hopped back in and drove for another 20 minutes and made it home.

What should have been a fairly short trip to the flea market ended up being a 2 hour escapade deep into the back country of Tennessee. I enjoyed it, even though I got us lost. It was nice being with Sariah. Plus we were listening to Jim Dale read the last Harry Potter book, which we both highly recommend. That man does a fantastic job narrating. But I digress.

Missing Sariah or Where I go all the time

Can I start by saying that I miss Sariah? Even if you don't want me to, I'm going to say it: I miss her. It's not like I don't see her either. It's that when I do see her, either my mind is distracted or it's in very short bursts of usually 30-60 minutes (obviously there are exceptions such as date night or Sundays, where I try not to study at all. Those exceptions rock). Such is the life of a medical student.

My day typically starts at about 6:45. That isn't too bad, especially since I had to be at work by 6:30 for my last job. I get ready and, if I'm driving myself, I leave Sariah home to sleep on. My first class starts at 8:00 with lectures every hour until noon most days. These aren't your typical lectures either. We cover a semester's worth of undergrad material in a couple hours. And then do it again the next day! It is honestly like trying to drink from a firehose. In the afternoon, I have a lab or two that keeps me on campus until roughly 5:30. Then I finally get to go home hungry, tired, and often smelling like formaldehyde. I eat and then study again until 10:30 or 11:00.

I'm going to throw in a little something here about how awesome Sariah is. Most of the time when I get home, she is already making dinner, the house has been cleaned, and laundry has been folded. I am constantly amazed by how willing she is to do those things to make my life easier. This has been a huge sacrifice for her. I mean, she gave up a very promising career at an incredible school to follow me out to the middle of nowhere Tennessee. Not only that, but she left behind all of her friends to become a foreigner wandering in a strange land, and strange it is. She is quite honestly alone out here.

School is hard, but I have friends at school. I'm kept busy by the insane amount of information that I need to know. I don't have very much spare time. It's not all that bad though because the things that I'm learning are so interesting. This is what I wanted to do. However, leaving Sariah behind in the morning and not being "home" when I'm home has been one of the hardest things about med school thus far. I miss her. So for the next few years, the image of Sariah that will be most common for me to see is her rolling over to fall back asleep.

In the end, it will be worth it. She'll still be there when all is said and done. Then I'll be able to crawl back in on my side of the bed, put an arm around her, and just be with her.

Missing James or Where does he go all the time?

On Wednesday, I took a delicious cobb-type salad to James at school.  It was nice to see him for a little while while we ate.  What did he do that day?  Oh, not much.  Just learning about ALL of human embryology and fetal development.  No biggie.  What did I do that day?  Dishes.  I washed the heck out of those dishes.  Plus I made that delicious salad, so clearly I'm the winner here.

On Thursday, I actually got to see James for dinner. Then he disappeared into his study room until about midnight.

On Friday, I took James to school, where he studied and took quizzes and such all day, while I did exactly zero productive things, and then I dropped off his dinner for him so he could keep studying while I continued to be unproductive.

On Saturday (last night), at about ten thirty James finally came home from a long grueling day on campus.  I had spent all day reading The Fault in Our Stars instead of making curtains, and had been texting James updates throughout the day: "This book is very witty!"  "Aaah it's the saddest book I've ever even heard of!"  "I like this book.  Come home so I can tell you about it." "Waaah why why why did I even start this book? I hate it!"  "You don't have cancer, do you?"  (Spoiler: that book is about teenagers with cancer.)  James would respond with comments like, "I'm studying."  "Sounds good. Maybe I'll be done in a few hours."  "Noooooooooooooooo not the saddest book!"

James came inside (we're still on Saturday here) and I looked up at him (having finally returned to the making-curtains activity, since the book was over).  I was startled; I had actually forgotten what he looked like a little bit!  When I'd think of him this week, I wouldn't be picturing his face in my mind.  I'd think about getting dinner to him, or how we were going to figure out who got the car that day, or if he was getting enough sleep, or if he was ever able to memorize those stupid acronyms.  I'd forgotten how much I liked his face!

In some ways, it's nice.  It's like dating again!  I got a little shy at first, thinking, "Woah, I married that?  He's amazing!  How did I get so lucky?  Maybe I should've put makeup on or something while reading that book today."  (Let's be honest, though: I would have cried it all off.)  But in other ways, it's really not nice.  I really miss James.  Even when I'm with him, he's thinking about muscles and proteins while we eat, or else we're driving to/from school.  That's all.  He goes to school in the morning and takes classes and studies.  He either comes home for dinner or stays there.  After dinner, he studies either in his study room or at school.  Often I'm already in bed by the time he's done.  (There are only so many dishes you can do in one day, after all.)  It's worse in the week before a test than other weeks, and since his test is tomorrow, he'll have a day or two where he as a few more hours for me.  But then there's another test in two weeks, so...yes.  That's the honest truth about med school wives.  I'll see him in a few years, I guess. He really does try to spend time with me, and I know I have more time with him than many wives; there's just not very much he can give.  For now, this is what James looks like:

My Manipulative Husband

James survived his first week of med school!  His first test is already here (tomorrow), and he's been busy.  He spends almost all of his waking time at school and studying.  We live 20 minutes away from the school, so it's hard for him to give up the 40 minutes of study time to drive there and back so he can study in a group, so next year we'll probably move closer to the school.  Their biggest class so far has been anatomy, which he's loved.

Now, James is going to be a DO, and one of the differences between a DO and an MD is that DOs do osteopathic manipulations.  This means they do stuff to your muscles.  (Remember, chiropractors = bones, DOs = muscles.)  They started in on that this week, and their first lab was finding key features on bones so they can...I don't know...so they can find them.  On people.  And something about muscles.  So James comes home one night this week for dinner and announces, "I need to manipulate you for fifteen minutes tonight.  It's homework."

This was my favorite thirty minutes of the week.  (See?  He doubled his homework time!  He's gonna be a great DO!  Actually, it's mostly because when he was done I said, "I don't think you got them all right.  You should try again.  You're not very manipulative.")  I lay there while he turned my arms, feet, and mostly my head this way and that, trying to press through my muscles to feel landmarks on the bones.  I heard such things as, "Prepare to turn your head laterally," "That can't possibly be too hard, Sariah; I can barely feel it through your muscle here," "Wow, your jaw is in really bad shape! Do you think you can let my study group feel it sometime?" "Where IS that....oh, I was in the wrong place.  It's on your chin," "Oh, that's just your belly button," "Don't be ridiculous, Sariah" and "Your external occipital protuberance is much more pronounced than my lab partner's" (one of my best features! I do what I can to support my husband's manipulation skills).

It was really great, though.  Strange as it sounds, there's something soothing in having someone cradle your face and poke around your skull with their fingers.  He's supposed to learn real manipulations soon (as opposed to poking around your head).  In fact, I'm pretty sure he isn't very good yet and will need lots of practice.  If you come visit us, I'm sure he'll practice on you, too.

The First Day

My first day has come and gone. All things considered, it was a fairly easy day. It was only one lecture and one lab: anatomy. I had to take a couple anatomy classes during undergrad, so I wasn't expecting the material to be anything new. The biggest difference that I can tell so far between med school and undergrad is that I honestly have to memorize know/understand everything that was in that lecture before the next one. All throughout orientation the doctors were saying how med school will snowball if you don't study one day. With the fear of dying in a horrible avalanche of medical knowledge, I have studied roughly 5 hours for one lecture. 5 HOURS! Who does that? If I had heard that someone had spent 5 hours reviewing 1 hour's worth of material, I would have called them crazy. Now, I know better. Medical students do that. This is my life now. Hurray?

On the plus side, it's all very interesting. Anatomy was one of my favorite classes before getting here, so I'm hoping that that will be the case again. The best part about anatomy classes during undergrad was the cadaver lab. There are few things as cool as being able to look inside a body. I know. This sounds kind of weird. But, I'm weird like that. Learning anatomy by touching and feeling everything is awesome. I'm having a hard time finding the right word to describe what it's like seeing inside another human. It's a little bit of awe mixed with a dash of fear with a whole lot of awesome. It's a sacred experience. That may sound strange, but that's honestly how it is. All in all, I'm thinking that anatomy is going to enjoyably difficult.